Production Log

This post will be consistently updated with information on tasks that have been carried out throughout the project, whether they are in group work or individually. I will always state my opinions on the projects progress and any input I have made. I will try to record and keep it best up to date as I can.

15th September 2012 - Began researching the genre social realism, which will be followed by analytical research of moving image pieces to gain a better understanding of the genre and media we will be using for this project. This post included image posts of the first examples of social realism I had found and a documentary link I had found in my spare time giving a easy to understand summary of social realism, from the perspective of a few celebrity faces.

29th September 2012 - Have completed all research on the genre of social realism in general; I now feel I have a good understanding of how to approach the project and the themes I will have to follow or challenge. I used quite a few different pieces of modern technology to record and present my research, such as Prezi and screenshots.

4th October 2012 - We were assigned groups today, in which we would work with for the rest of the project. We will all take responsibility for our own work and aid each other as best as we can. Teamwork is the key here. We also decided a company name for our fictional production company; Makley Productions.

17th October 2012 - We have begun researching and practising with film in general now rather than just basing our studies around social realism. We've started to explore camera angles and distances, as well as post-production techniques. I personally felt I didn't get enough input for the 'project practise' piece as I was singled out a little bit, but I'm sure I'll find opportunities to make up for it later in the project.

20th October 2012 - And I did! I was absent one day when Matt and Katie decided to practise using focus. I found these practise clips just floating around on our Macbooks' desktop without any structure or explanation to what they were. So, to make up for my absence, I decided to write some notes on and create a video to present the clips they had gathered. I personally really liked my video, I hope it showed my group what I am capable of video-editing wise so maybe I will be considered for it more often in the future.

19th November 2012 - I created a company logo (or ident) for Makley Productions using Photoshop and Sony Vegas Pro 12, as well as used footage we had all shot on a previous camera test shoot. I'm rather pleased with my input so far, I feel I've made up for any parts I didn't collaborate in by always adding in my own found research, notes and presentation work rather than just taking everyone else's and claiming credit. Besides, I feel the other group members struggle with remembering to record and present their work, so at least I can be of help there.

20th November 2012 - We've spent the last month or so being quite busy drawing or writing scripts and storyboards, as well as drafting and finalising lots of different versions. Our teamwork for this part was brilliant though. Matt and I took on the role of creating the storyboards together -which is a lengthy process- whilst Katie took on the role of creating a script. We had both finished our pieces of work at practically the same time, keeping us very organised, up to date and ready to proceed onto the next steps of production.

25th November 2012 - Today was our first production shooting, as a full group, and it didn't go so well. The tripod we were using was faulty and then the SD card inside the camera turned out to be corrupt as well, so we couldn't capture any useful footage this day. We will try again very soon though in order to make sure we keep up to date.

28th November 2012 - Matt and I produced our first set of internal footage today for Scene 1. We had some issues with another faulty tripod but we improvised and acted quickly to find similar flat surfaces to use as a stand instead for our shots, rather than putting the shoot off again for another day.

11th December 2012 - We have now completed all visual shooting for our short film, from start to finish. Overall, it was a pretty easy process and we didn't encounter too many problems. I am however very disappointed in how the team assists each other with work, as a lot of the time so far I have seen and felt my hard work (such as photography, notes and montage videos) is being directly taken and not having anything given in return, such as additional note input. I seem to be the only one who bothers to record our processes. It could be argued that perhaps this is a role I fit well, but it does seem a little unfair and almost as if a lot of the evidence work is being done by myself.

20th December 2012 - We began post-production here, as well had all the visual and audio footage we needed. I felt I was yet again singled out during this process, however I made sure to put some input in this stage after classes and during free times. This was mainly to delete any unnecessary clips, create larger qualitative credits and particularly the audio edits. I felt my major role during this stage was this audio editing, as I have a lot of experience in it from personal projects I do at home. I also created and posted a very basic first half draft of the film, which was used purely to show progress and some form of manipulation to our footage.

16th January 2013 - We released our first full draft of our film yesterday. It's good, but still needs a lot of work on both visuals and audio. I'd like to focus on the audio again, particularly the bus scene, as I feel it wasn't quite up to professional standard yet. There were also a few scenes left in our draft version that felt unnecessary and pointless, to be blunt, so they will need to be removed at a later date. I also released lots of posts relating to this process, including the sound ambience and importing of our logo posts. I thought they would be useful to record for our project as they show quite important pieces of our film being created.

17th January 2013 - I spent today creating a post based on social media. I took the whole day to, by myself, create an authentic-looking Facebook page and enhance how our film would be seen via social networking. This also includes starting the Twitter trend #AnchoredRenegade2013. I tried to make it as realistic and professional as I could by doing things like setting Matt, Katie and I as admins, posting frequently and optimistically  as well as trying to post interesting looking posts in order to attract viewers and eventually likes and feedback. I like how much effort I've put into this section of the work, considering I did it all alone. Normally companies would hire teams to create these sorts of social networking mediums for them, yet I did it all by myself. We shall see if this effort creates good results and extra feedback in the near future.

21st January 2013 - We released our second draft of our film yesterday. At first, it was a final cut, until we, along with feedback we had gained from teachers and viewers, began to notice silly little mistakes and even more scenes that felt unneeded for our final production. Group conflicts also began to arise by this point as some members wanted the film one way whereas another would want it another way and it the group atmosphere as began to become a little tense. In the real world, it would be the directors choice alone on how the film was, whereas we had multiple directors so no one had the final judgement on them. However, we decided to work on the film some more, fixing mistakes such as random corrupt clips and audio peaking so that the next release could finally be our final piece.

25th January 2013 - We were assigned our ancillary tasks today; a magazine review article and a promotional film poster, both having to act in synergy and promote our short film. We decided to start on the film review as we felt it would require more time and work. Matt and I take Graphic Design, thus making the poster task easy for us, whereas we felt the magazine task would be more challenging and need more time to get right. I began the ancillary task by creating a summary page for it. This was then followed by Matt and I putting in our input by researching the typical norms for a magazine review article; he focussing on the design, I focussing on the content. This will definitely help us with creating our product.

31st January 2013 - We finished our film review magazine article today, gaining only good feedback and responses on it. We are very proud of the design that Matt created, as he did the designing of the piece. It looked very authentic and could easily be posted into a real magazine. I am also very pleased of my content, as it looked and sounded very legitimate and accurate to how a magazine reviewer would speak. Our success was definitely aided by the research we previously did.

2nd February 2013 - The second ancillary task, the promotional poster, began here. I started off by creating a summary post, much like what I had done previously with the magazine review, and began research. Katie created some analysis's of posters and I created some of my own as well to boost the amount of research quality and quantity we had. I feel we had a good understanding of the poster after this research.

4th Feburary 2013 - I've spent the past few days working on the poster myself whilst the other group members worked on their blog pages and other work. I completed a variety of tasks, based from our research, such as initial font design, initial poster sketch designs and lots of other planning processes, including a Behance document showing the process of the posters production, to ensure that the poster and its design is fully understood, along with how it acts in synergy with the other two pieces of media we have previously created for this product.

6th Feburary 2013 - The promotional film poster was complete today. I posted my work onto my blog.

13th February 2013 - The final film was released today. Unfortunately, due to conflicts in the group, we ended up rendering and posting separate versions of the film as our final products, as some of us (I included admittedly) strongly did not agree with some of the edits that other group members placed into the film. However, I'm looking at this in an optimistic way. It gave me a chance to finally put in my own large amount of individual input rather than letting myself be pushed around and sitting back letting others do the work, as I could now create and release the film as I found right and appropriate. It also made me a lot more responsible for the overall responses and grades I get rather than relying on others work, as well as not bringing others down. I think the version I released looks very professional now, thanks to following feedback and trusting my own creative video editing skills. Needless to say, I cannot judge or say if I believe my project will get any higher or lower marks than the other group members final pieces, but I think I made the right choice in sticking to my own final piece, and I feel proud of it.

15th Feburary 2013 - All evaluation questions have been posted now. Below is a summary of all the processes and input that was put into the individual questions.

Question 1: (In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?)
For this question, I created a video that explored the different aspects in our short film of which we had been inspired or influenced from other social realism based films. I included text content along side the comparison or images of interest to create an easy to read, nicely set out video.

Question 2: (How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?)
For this question, Matt created a Prezi presentation, exploring the aspects of our main and ancillary tasks, as well as how they work in synergy with each other.

Question 3: (What have you learned from your audience feedback?)

For this question, I created a Behance document and included a variety of different pieces of media on this page. I included a Powerpoint Presentation (which Katie made), hand-written interview answer notes and even recorded one of the people who watched the film and interviewed them, to see how they felt about the final product. I also include screenshots and key frames from our film to state which parts I was talking about it certain sections and add more imagery interest to the document. These were then followed by feedback we had gained from the social networking sites I had previously created, including YouTube views, Facebook likes and email reviews. I was very proud of my input for this question, as I felt I went to a lot of effort to gain feedback.

Question 4: (How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?)

This question was mostly answered via a mind map format, of which I created myself. It was then followed by small pieces of summary texts explaining what I had learnt from the technologies used, such as advantages and disadvantages and how I had developed my skills in using the technologies to develop, plan, produce and present my work.

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